The Old House (s3. 8 oz Coke)

The health and wellness concept is getting on everyone in the office except me and as health enthusiasts are increasing like tenfold, I wonder, how come it hasn’t hit me yet? Not even when the doctor advised me to look after my weight since my cholesterol level is frying hot and my blood is getting sugary each day. I promised myself once more to eat healthy and exercise and get disappointed by myself all over again for not taking the extra effort to commit to it.

I have a penchant for deadly combinations, well aside from the public admission of being a caffeine addict, a foodie and a sweet tooth, I am a loyal client of the Coca Cola company since 1st grade. I am a Coke fan. I refer to the classic Coke, not the Light one or the Coke-zero. I find these variations hilarious, how can you have Coke without the sugar? It’s like eating pasta without the sauce. While some people recognize the intricate connection between wine and spirits, I can say that I share the same line of thinking and belief that sugar and Coke should not be separated at all. Thus, the sugar component must remain. It’s a non-negotiable. It is the price you have to pay for the great taste.

 

Put away all those marketing frills and fads, I have my loyalty tied to Coke original because I have one great memory of a person attached to it, my grandfather, Tatay Mateo. He is a Filipino Spanish mestizo from Tacloban and my mother inherited his lustrous skin and high bridged nose while all I got was his fondness for a dark sweet beverage called Coke.

 

I remember him as one silent man who used words sparingly and still had a powerful presence around people. I felt that power every time he arrives home from work to eat lunch with me and my cousins in the Old House. This is one of my earliest lessons in life; silence does not always mean timidity or coyness, for silence could outperform spoken words; it is a way of speaking soul to soul where communication is at its highest form and class. Grandfather must have mastered this art and found speaking through words a futile exercise.

 

He seldom smiles and during those times he did, I could see his eyes lit up a handsome face. Though I spent less time with him compared to my grandmother, I could still remember the stance he assumes while walking around the Old House with his cane. The pounding of the cane against the wooden floor was my indicator of his presence.

 

Every afternoon, coming home from school, I would proceed to the nearby hotel’s billiard center. I would play-pretend not to see Tatay Mat in his workplace to make it appear that I was sent to the same place by sheer luck. I would wait patiently in a corner and look towards his direction discreetly, like a decisive billiard player projecting her next move. At the instant he sees me in my quiet solitude, he suddenly disappears from my view and then I know our game is nearly done. My grandfather re-appears from the diner with an 8 oz Coke in one hand and a smile on his face. He waves at me and I walk towards him, taking all the time in the world to show that I wasn’t in a hurry at all to claim my prize. This was victory for a little girl and it tasted sweet.

 

As a parting sign, I would take his hand and dab it to my forehead (mano) as a gesture of respect and my thanks. My grandfather looks at me smiling, his handsome face imprinted in my mind and his silence, powerful enough to last me a lifetime.

The Old House (s2. One Sad Lomi Story)

Do you remember one wounding incident in your young life? I do.

Some say that children are bound to forget both pleasant and unpleasant events that have transpired in their lives from age 1 to 5. However I got this memory lodged in the inner corners of my brain, reminisced unexpectedly with great fondness whenever I am into contemplation. A memory of an event that I never imagined would merit laughter as the story ages and the “owner of the memory” finally grows up.

It happened in 1981, I was 5 and living with my grandmother in her old house along Calye Callejon. Living away from my parents was easy because in the old house, there also live 5 of my cousins. My grandmother’s house sort of served as a repository/boarding house of her grandchildren ages 5 to 16. Nanay looked after all of us and managed the household with precision.

Among my cousins, I grew fondness for Kuya Jay and Ate Bing during my long stay in the old house. I stuck with them despite the 4 to 5 year age gap and we were a troupe.

Kuya Jay was tall, gangly and inventive. His imagination has often resulted to playtime innovations such as turning the mosquito net into a moviehouse. I will never forget the red Coca-Cola yoyo he gave me. It was the hippest toy in school then. Ate Bing on the other hand was my constant playmate. We were like Batman and Robin. Whatever she does I copy to her detriment. She had a gift with her hands and she drew really good images of flowers and houses. Not to be outdone, I remember racing ahead of her towards Nanay to show off my drawing of stick-like people. We would pester our grandmother to choose which drawing was better and to it she would only say, “parehong maganda.”

Dinner on a Sunday in the old house was special. Nanay would put extra effort in cooking the meals. To compliment the special meals, she buys a bowl of great tasting Lomi from the nearby Chinese restaurant.

In the long table I was seated most of the time next to Kuya Jay. A blessing or a curse, I do not know but in this case, being OC was a curse. I have this practice of eating my meals orderly. I would first sample the basic dish before savoring the centerpiece meal. The Lomi was to be eaten last for it was my centerpiece meal. The noodle soup was teeming with meat balls, squid balls and my favorite quail eggs. It’s save the best for last for me and I would set aside the quail eggs from my bowl to a saucer while eating the rest of the soup. All of a sudden Kuya Jay dove his fork to the helpless quail eggs and gobbled them all. I was stupefied for a moment with my eyes large in disbelief until I let out a loud cry in protest.

The adults were caught in surprise since they were busy conversing. The pleasant dinner turned into a commotion as I could not be stopped from my fit of temper. I could not be consoled nor bribed with a refilling of my soup bowl or a new serving of fried chicken leg. I wanted my cousin to produce the quail eggs he wolfed. Amidst desperation and tears, I wailed my lungs and heart out in searched for justice while Kuya Jay disappeared from the crime scene. The bawling did not stop as I recall it went for hours until sleep silently crept and rob me of consciousness.

The next day I did not talk to my cousin. And for the succeeding days I never went near him again for I still shiver at the memory of betrayal. I was young but vindictive I was obsessed with the idea of avenging myself.

Not until my mother took me to live with my immediate family did I see my behavior at the Lomi incident as ridiculous. When I was separated from my cousins for years, I realized that I missed them somehow. I saw Kuya Jay again when he was already in college while I was in high-school. We exchange a few words every now and then but we were never close again. It was more than the Lomi incident I guess. We already grew apart.

I found this bit of my life amusing but worth a pause. I have neatly stored it in my memory library for reference and reflection. There are times when I become the 5-year old girl again in the story who wanted revenge for the pain she suffered from an injustice. Now a grown-up I found it useful to look at pain as also a condition of existence.